This is done entirely in Carrara except the captions (Cartoon Life). The set is the Obanion Bridge, with shaders applied to the Captain's chair platform to make the trampoline. The body armor is applied to the V4 bodysuit. It is made with a single small map from the Genesis Supersuit, and a precise amount of Carrara displacement (and a lot of sweat and blood, frankly).

"Fighter Cyclone ► Arcadia Graffiti" ... My latest and perhaps entry... really. I've added another figure inside and made the glass a tiny bit clearer. I'd though about dating it 4017 but why confuse myself and others. This was my first experience with a metaball as well as adding glow to a primitive with glow in it's shader channel. Haha... I'd thought about some blasts or stikes from the ship off screne being fired upon... along with putting "Bad Bird 2" hanging onto the ship somewhere.

The setup... why I added boots to the chars is beyond me... they could be driving barefoot... also took a lot of time posing them... guess I needed the practice. :)

Pinups or cheesecake (or beefcake) are images of men or women designed with an undisguised element of sexuality. These images, often highly idealized, display or mimic the human form in a way that focuses on - and draws your attention to - its inherent sexual attractiveness. In other words, a pinup is not just another pretty face. :)

However, even though the "classic" pinup - as defined for this Challenge - has a definite sexual component, the sexuality in such an image is more suggested and implied than it is explicit. Although the attitude of the model may be coy, saucy, flirtatious or even seductive, all such invitations are just suggestions or hopes for the future - more of a tease for your imagination than a "done deal."

Of course, what is considered as sexuality acceptable in a pinup image is largely determined by the aesthetics of the era. For example, there were pinup images printed in the early 20th century which look very mild today, yet they were considered shocking in their time. In the current Challenge, we are not looking to shock, but we do want to stretch boundaries and show how awesome that Carrara is in helping artists create pinups that "catch the eye." However, you can push the limits only so far. Please remember that we must follow the Daz TOS, which prohibits nudity.

To summarize, in a classic pinup, there is undeniable eye-catching sex appeal. And yet, even though a lot of skin may be showing (or not), there is usually a bit of an eye wink present as well.

In that spirit, we begin Carrara Challenge #36.

(Further pinup examples and explanations will be offered in the next post.)

2. General Rules:

1. Each participant may submit up to 3 images, but they have to be in at least two different Challenge categories. The three Challenge categories are PR, NPR, and Halloween. (see Sponsors and Prizes below).

2. Images must be new (previously unpublished).

3. Images must be "mostly" set up in Carrara.

4. Postwork is allowed, but it must not be the dominant part of the image. Posting images of before and after postwork is encouraged.

5. At least one WIP (work in progress) image of the Carrara setup must be posted to the WIP thread

6. The winner of the "Best Participation" category becomes the next Carrara Challenge host, and sets the rules for the next competition. But should the winner decline this honor, the winner of the next category (Best Photorealistic Render) will then get the opportunity to step forward and fill the role.

To encourage exploration of the new plugin, I'd like to add the following requirement in Carrara Challenge #36 - if you enter all three render categories (PR, NPR, and Halloween), at least one of your renders must include the use of the G'MIC plugin. It can be used anywhere in the process, and not necessarily the final render.

If you only enter one or two categories, this rule does not apply - unless you just want to have fun exploring the new plugin.

4. Sponsors and prizes

Once again Daz will generously sponsor the monthly Challenge.

I am working on adding a Carrara PA sponsor as well. The PA prize category will be announced at that time.

Once again, I propose a slightly different prize format this month (and it has again been OK'd by DAZ). For this contest, there are different categories, much like the Academy Awards (Oscars) and the prizes are all more-or-less equal. An artist can win only one of the Daz prizes, but can win both a Daz prize and a PA prize. Comments about this are again welcomed. I explain the process in more detail in THIS THREAD. Please read it if you have questions.

UnifiedBrain, thank you for the comment! It appeared very difficult to find the same filter for the second time. It seems that it was «retro-fade», but don't remember the category. Now I made some screen shots of some interesting filter results. Nomad6 is the one where the "retro-fade" was used.

This was going to be my attempt at an homage to one of the old Conan bookcover art styles, but unfortunately Carrara has suddenly gone from my most dependable tool to my least dependable, crashing and crashing. I have no idea why, but I'm tremendously frustrated at the moment, and this render is all I have left of the scene which is now gone and unrecoverable, even though I saved several times while building it. This was just an early test render, not a final, but I just don't know if I have it in me to try to rebuild the scene, yet again, from scratch, so even though this is small it may end up being final.

This was going to be my attempt at an homage to one of the old Conan bookcover art styles, but unfortunately Carrara has suddenly gone from my most dependable tool to my least dependable, crashing and crashing. I have no idea why, but I'm tremendously frustrated at the moment, and this render is all I have left of the scene which is now gone and unrecoverable, even though I saved several times while building it. This was just an early test render, not a final, but I just don't know if I have it in me to try to rebuild the scene, yet again, from scratch, so even though this is small it may end up being final.

Savage Sword of Conan! YES!! I think it fits perfect with this challenge, very cool idea. :D

I am so sorry to hear of your troubles, Jon That scene looks excellent. As a Conan fan, I hope that you rebuild and finish it, but I know how tough it can be mentally. You may feel more ambition after a couple of good nights sleep. At least that works for me.

Plus, it would be nice to find out what exactly caused Carrara to crash.

It's probably not very efficient, but I always save new versions as I go along. So by the time I get to the final details, there are about 20 or more earlier versions saved. If things crash, I just open an earlier version.

I am so sorry to hear of your troubles, Jon That scene looks excellent. As a Conan fan, I hope that you rebuild and finish it, but I know how tough it can be mentally. You may feel more ambition after a couple of good nights sleep. At least that works for me.

Plus, it would be nice to find out what exactly caused Carrara to crash.

It's probably not very efficient, but I always save new versions as I go along. So by the time I get to the final details, there are about 20 or more earlier versions saved. If things crash, I just open an earlier version.

this and save subscenes separately as in export individual parts or groups to .car file

with VWD clothes I have to as no way will a whole saved scene load

I save out nla clips, clothes, shader trees etc all separately so can load a new Genesis etc if needed and apply it all.

Thanks for the encouraging words, it definitely helps with the frustration level. One advantage to rebuilding the scene over and over is you get really fast at putting it together. I know exactly what poses I'm using, how to tweak them, where to find the exact clothing, etc, etc. So I put the whole thing back together yet again, very carefully adding one item at a time in ways I knew should not cause problems (never drag clothing onto a character, for example, but instead put it in the scene first and then conform it once it's in, seems to be a way for me to avoid lots of problems), and was in the final stages of readjusting lighting with test renders, when - sure enough - Carrara crashed yet again. I don't understand why this program which has been rock solid for me for years and years has suddenly gone crash-crazy.

I'll try to participate this time, the theme works quite well for me, and should be a lot of fun

This is the start of the first idea I'm kicking around for the Halloween entry. Thought I'd get an early concept image in with no modifications to the shaders and just a basic HDRI for lighting to show how different things look after shader and light manipulation. Hopefully I'll have the time and energy to finish this one, and more typical pinup (just got done guiding a long tour and now fighting bronchitis).